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English  Versions 

Prior  to 

King  James 


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£58 

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ENGLISH  VERSIONS 
Prior  to  King  James 


(From  the  "Bible  Society  Record") 


Tercentenary  Leaflet  2 


William  Tindale,  Translator 
and  Martyr 


'I  call  God  to  recorde,  against  y^  day  we 
'  shall  appeare  before  our  Lord  lesus,  to  geue 
'a  recknyng  of  our  doings,  that  I  neuer  al- 
'  tered  one  sillable  of  Gods  word  agaynst  my 
'coscience,  nor  would  this  day,  if  all  that  is 
'in  the  earth,  whether  it  be  pleasure,  honour 
'or  riches,  might  be  geuen  me.' 

'I  assure  you,'  he  said  to  a  royal  envoy, 
'  if  it  would  stand  with  the  king's  most  gra- 
'  cious  pleasure  to  grant  only  a  bare  text  of 
'the  Scripture  to  be  put  forth  among  his 
'  people,  like  as  is  put  forth  among  the  subjects 
'  of  the  emperor  in  these  parts  [the  Nether- 
'  lands],  and  of  other  Christian  princes,  be  it 
'  of  the  translation  of  what  person  soever 
'shall  please  his  majesty,  I  shall  immediately 
'  make  faithful  promise  never  to  write  more, 
'nor  abide  two  days  in  these  parts,  after  the 
'  same ;  but  immediately  repair  into  his  realm , 
'  and  there  most  humbly  submit  myself  at  the 
'  feet  of  his  royal  majesty,  offering  my  body, 
'to  suffer  what  pain  or  torture,  yea,  what 
'death  his  grace  will,  so  that  this  be  ob- 
'  tained.^ 


FOREWORD 


The  Tercentenary  of  the  Eng- 
lish Bible 

FOR  nearly  three  hundred  years  Anglo- 
Saxon  Christendom  has  been  mainly  nour- 
ished on  that  translation  of  the  Holy  Scrips 
tures  generally  known  as  the  King  James  or 
Authorized  Version. 

The  year  1911  will  complete  the  third  cen- 
tury of  the  prosperous  reign  of  King  James, 
a  veritable  monarch  in  versions  whose  scepter 
is  universally  acknowledged. 

It  is  the  desire  and  purpose  of  the  Ameri- 
can Bible  Society  to  aid  and  help  toward  a 
worthy  commemoration  of  this  great  event. 
The  Churches  generally  will  no  doubt  recog- 
nize it,  and  in  some  cases  appoint  formal  cel- 
ebrations. A  committee  of  scholars  of  various 
churches  sitting  during  the  summer  at  Prince- 
ton, N.  J.,  has  been  busily  at  work  preparing 
a  new  commemorative  edition.  The  British 
and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  as  well  as  our  own, 
is  laying  plans  for  an  appropriate  recognition 
of  what  so  vitally  concerns  all  Bible  Societies. 
The  National  Bible  Society  of  Scotland  is 
also  taking  similar  steps. 

The   constitution   of   the    British   and   the 
American  Societies  has  been  in  recent  years 
altered  to  permit  the  publication  of  the  Re- 
vised Version  in  English. 
1 


The  amended  Constitution  of  the  American 
Bible  Society  now  reads  (Article  I) : 

"The  only  copies  in  the  English  language, 
to  be  circulated  by  the  Society,  shall  be  of  the 
version  set  forth  in  1611,  and  commonly 
known  as  the  King  James  Version,  whether 
in  its  original  form  as  published  in  the  afore- 
said year  or  as  revised,  the  New  Testament 
in  1881  and  the  Old  Testament  in  1885,  and 
published  in  these  years  under  the  supervision 
of  the  Committee  of  Revision,  or  as  further 
revised  and  edited  by  the  American  Commit- 
tee of  Revision  and  printed  under  its  super- 
vision in  1901." 

The  Revised  Version  is  thus  classified  prop- 
erly as  a  variant  from  the  original  version  of 
1611,  so  that  the  preferences  of  Christian  peo- 
ple for  either  the  earlier  or  the  latter  form  of 
King  James  should  not  hinder  them  from 
heartily  co-operating  in  a  great  Festival  of 
Commemoration  of  this  the  chief  classic  of 
our  English  language  and  literature,  and 
probably  the  finest  reproduction  in  another 
tongue  of  the  original  Greek  and  Hebrew 
Scriptures. 

This  leaflet  furnishes  some  brief  memoranda 
relating  to  the  history  of  the  English  Bible  and 
the  chief  personages  connected  with  its  pro- 
duction, beginning  with  Wy cliff e  and  including 
the  Versions  prior  to  King  James.  It  will  be 
followed  by  another  dealing  with  the  Author- 
ized Version  itself,  including  its  later  revision. 
The  facts  have  often  enough  been  stated,  and 
in  the  limits  of  our  space  can  only  be  very 
briefly  touched  on.  It  may  be  useful  for  us  to 
2 


give  some  hints  as  to  the  best  books  on  the  sub- 
ject, that  pastors,  Sunday-school  superintend- 
ents, and  others  may  know  where  to  turn. 

Every  church,  every  family,  every  school, 
and  especially  every  Sunday-school,  might 
wisely  make  some  special  effort  to  awaken 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  people,  and  es- 
pecially of  children  and  young  people,  to  the 
history  of  this  the  best  English  book  for  child- 
hood, youth  and  age  alike. 

In  tracing  this  history  we  can  scarcely  do 
more  than  mention  those  fragmentary  and  al- 
most prehistoric  beginnings  that  fall  in  the 
matin  prime  of  English  letters  and  English 
religious  life. 

First  comes  Caedmon  the  Benedictine  monk 
in  the  seventh  century,  who  paraphrased  in 
Anglo-Saxon  verse  portions  of  Scripture,  and 
a  little. later  Aldhelm  and  Guthlac,  each  of 
whom  translated  the  Psalms  into  Anglo- 
Saxon.  Then  came  the  Venerable  Bede 
(born  675,  died  735).  His  scholar,  Cuthbert, 
who  was  an  eye  witness,  has  left  for  us  the 
touching  picture  of  his  last  day  on  earth  when, 
as  he  finished  his  life,  he  finished  his  transla- 
tion of  the  Gospel  of  John,  chanting  the 
Gloria  Patria  as  he  expired  with  the  name  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  on  his  lips, — a  fit  foreshadow- 
ing of  what  was  to  come. 

After  him  in  the  ninth  century  Alfred  the 
Great  prefixed  to  his  laws  a  paraphrase  of  the 
Ten  Commandments,  and  he  too  was  engaged 
in  making  a  version  of  the  Psalms  at  the  time 
of  his  death  (901).. 

Eadfrith,  Bishop  of  Lindisfame  (680),  and 
3 


Aelfric  in  the  tenth  century,  and  the  author 
of  the  Ormulum,  a  paraphrase  of  the  Gospels 
and  the  Acts,  followed,  and  others  also.  These 
were  all  of  good  use  in  that  early  period, 
the  darkest  hour  just  before  the  dawn  of  the 
Reformation,  until  John  Wycliffe,  its  morn- 
ing star,  shone  in  England  and  the  day  was 
at  hand. 


John  Wycliffe  and  his  Work 

WYCLIFFE'S  "Apology"  puts  into  the 
clearest  light  his  attitude  toward  the 
Bible.  He  was  truly  the  John  Baptist  of  the 
English  Bible — vox  clamantis  in  deserto. 

''Oh  Lord  God  !  sithin  at  the  beginning  of  faith,  so 
many  men  translated  into  Latin  to  great  profit  of 
Latin  men  ;  let  one  simple  creature  of  God  translate 
into  English  for  profit  of  Englishmen.  For  if  world- 
ly clerks  look  well  their  chronicles  and  books  they 
shoulden  find  that  Bede  translated  the  Bible  and  ex- 
pounded much  in  Saxon,  that  was  English  either 
common  language  of  this  land  in  his  time.  And  not 
only  Bede,  but  King  Alfred  that  founded  Oxenford, 
translated  so  his  last  days  the  beginning  of  the  Psalter 
in  Saxon  and  would  more  if  he  had  lived  longer. 
Also  Frenchmen  Beemers  and  Britons  han  the  Bible 
and  other  books  of  devotion  and  exposition  trans- 
lated into  their  mother  language.  Why  shoulden 
not  Englishmen  have  the  same  in  their  mother  lan- 
guage ?     I  cannot  wit." 

The  date  of  his  birth  is  not  certain,  though 
it  is  ordinarily  fixed  in  1324.  He  synchro- 
nizes with  "  Dan  Chaucer,  well  of  English 
undefiled."  The  facts  of  his  early  life  are  not 
much  known,  but  he  was  a  student  of  Oxford, 
beginning  his  academic  career  very  early  and 
holding  during  his  lifetime  high  university 
offices  and  dignities,  chiefly  as  Master  of 
Balliol.  He  was  also  one  of  the  chaplains  of 
Edward  IIL,  and  in  1374  one  of  the  commis- 
sioners sent  by  that  monarch  to  confer  with 
delegates  appointed  by  Pope  Gregory  11.,  as 
to  ecclesiastical  authority  in  England.  Al- 
though a  priest  in  orders,  he  was,  throughout 
his  life,  and  increasingly  as  he  grew  older,  a 
5 


Protestant,  disputing  against  transubstantia- 
tion  and  rejecting  with  great  boldness  papal 
usurpation.  This  brought  him  into  disfavor 
and  he  was  tried  for  heresy,  but  escaped  by 
the  intervention  of  the  Queen  Mother.  Being 
brought  to  account  again  he  was  finally  com- 
pelled to  retire  from  more  public  positions  to 
his  little  village  rectory  of  Lutterworth,  of 
which  Tennyson  so  beautifully  sings : 

"  Not  least  art  thou,  thou  little  Bethlehem 
In  Judah,  for  in  thee  the  Lord  was  born; 
Nor  thou  in  Britain,  little  Lutterworth, 
Least,  for  in  thee  the  Word  was  born  again." 

Dr.  John  Eadie,  the  Scotch  historian  of  the 
English  Bible,  whose  treatise  (Macmillan  & 
Co.,  London)  no  one  wishing  to  understand 
the  subject  can  ignore,  ranks  Wy cliff e  as  *'one 
of  the  quaternion  of  great  schoolmen,"  along 
with  Bradwardine,  Occam,  and  Duns  Scotus. 
The  catalogue  of  his  works  in  both  Latin  and 
English,  though  not  complete,  covers  more 
than  sixty  octavo  pages,  and  he  was  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Eadie  the  most  popular  writer  in 
Europe. 

His  interest  in  Bible  translation,  however, 
was  not  scholastic  or  academic,  but  evidently 
grew  out  of  a  deep  heart-experience  of  Divine 
grace.  Here  are  two  quotations  which  are 
sufficient  to  show  this:  "Christ  and  his  Apos- 
tles converted  the  world  by  making  known 
the  truths  of  Scripture  in  a  form*  familiar  to 
them."  **  Christian  men  and  women,  young 
and  old,  should  study  first  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, should  cleave  to  the  study  of  it;  and 
no  simple  man  of  wit,  no  man  of  small  knowl- 
6 


Preface  to  Wycliffe^s   Harmony  of  the 
Gospels: 

*I  besek  and  with  alle  my  hert  pray  them  that 
'this  werk  redyn,  that 

'for  me  thci  pray  the  mercy  of  God,  that  I  may 
'fulfylle  that  is  set  in  the  draghing  of  this 
'boke;  and  that  he  at  whos  sttggestyon  I  this 
'werkc  began,  and  thei  that  (this)  werk  redyn, 
'and  alle  cristen  men  with  me,  thurgh  doynge 
'of  that  this  is  wrytyn  in  this  bok,  may  com 
•'to  geder  to  that  blisse  that  netier  salle  ende.* 

From  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  Wyclif fe 
version : 

'And  Jhesus  seynge  the  peple  went  up  into 
an  hil,  and  whanne  he  was  set  his  desciples 
camen  to  him.  And  he  openyed  his  mouthc 
and  taught  hem;  and  seide, 

'Blessid  ben  pore  men  in  spirit,  for  the  Kyng- 
dom  of  hevenes  is  herun. 

'Blessed  ben  mylde  men:  for  thei  schal  be 
comfortid* 

'  Blessed  ben  thei  that  hungren  rightwisnesse ; 
for  thei  schal  be  fulfilled^ 

'  Blessed  ben  mercef ul  men ;  for  thci  schal  gete 
mercy* 

'  Blessed  ben  thei  that  ben  of  dene  herte ;  for 
thei  schalen  se  God* 

'  Blessed  ben  pesible  men ;  for  thei  schalen  be 
clepid  Goddes  children/ 


edge,  should  be  afraid  to  study  immeasurably 
in  the  sacred  text." 

With  this  in  mind  he  began,  strangely 
enough,  with  the  Apocalypse,  and  by  1381 
appears  to  have  finished  the  New  Testament, 
translating  wholly  from  the  Latin  Vulgate. 
He  only  translated  part  of  the  Old  Testament 
before  his  death  in  1384,  but  his  friend  and 
follower,  Nicholas  de  Hereford,  and  still  more 
fully  his  "continuator,"  John  Purvey,  revised 
and  completed  what  Wycliffe  had  left  partly 
done,  and  it  may  be  that  he  himself  added 
finishing  touches.  At  all  events,  the  manu- 
script versions,  which  for  the  next  one  hundred 
or  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  persecution 
were  circulated  all  over  England,  are  rightly 
called  "the  Wycliffe  Versions,"  and  the 
"poor  Priests"  whom  he  sent  out  to  read 
them  to  the  people  and  make  them  known 
were  the  first  colporteurs,  heralds  of  the 
larger  company  in  these  happier  days  who 
follow  in  their  footsteps  as  itinerant  distrib- 
uters. 

The  influence  of  the  Wycliffe  versions  not 
only  upon  his  own  immediate  supporters,  the 
Lollards,  but  upon  the  masses  of  the  English 
people,  can  hardly  be  estimated.  Whether  or 
not  his  successors  in  Bible  translation,  William 
Tindale  and  the  rest,  borrowed  very  much 
from  his  diction,  yet  Bible  language  became 
increasingly  familiar  to  English  folk. 

There  is  some  difference  among  critics  as 
to  the  precise  relation  that  the  Wycliffe  Ver- 
sion sustains  to  Tindale.  In  general  the  atti- 
tude of  later  scholars  may  be  summed  up  in 
8 


the  following  sentence  from  the  Historical 
Catalogue  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible 
Society:  "The  Wyckliffite  Versions  seem  to 
have  exercised  no  considerable  influence  on 
Tind^le  or  succeeding  translators." 

This  is  based  on  Tindale's  own  words  ad- 
dressed to  the  reader  :  **  I  had  no  man  to 
counterfet,  nether  was  holpe  with  englysshe 
of  eny  that  had  interpreted  the  same,  or  soche 
lyke  thige  i  the  scripture  beforetyme." 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  must  be  set 
the  judgment  of  so  great  an  authority  as  Prof. 
George  P.  Marsh,  in  his  admirable  lectures  on 
the  English  language,  who  says,  "  Tindale  is 
merely  a  full  grown  Wycliff  e ; ' '  and  adds , ' '  The 
influence  of  Wycliffe  upon  Tindale  is  too  pal- 
pable to  be  mistaken,  and  it  cannot  be  dis- 
guised by  the  grammatical  differences,  which 
are  the-  most  important  points  of  discrepancy 
between  them.""  Wycliffe  he  considers  as 
having  originated  *'  the  diction  and  phraseol- 
ogy which  for  five  centuries  has  constituted 
the  consecrated  dialect  of  the  English  speech; 
and  Tindale  as  having  given  to  it  that  finish 
and  perfection  which  have  so  admirably 
adapted  it  to  the  expression  of  religious  doc- 
trine and  sentiment,  and  to  the  narration  of 
the  remarkable  series  of  historical  facts  which 
are  recorded  in  the  Christian  Scriptures." 

For  the  guidance  of  those  who  wish  to  ex- 
amine more  carefully  the  sources  of  knowl- 
edge, not  only  as  to  the  Wycliffe  versions,  but 
the  others  which  succeed  them,  a  convenient 
Bibliography  can  be  found  in  the  volume 
entitled  "Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  Bi- 
9 


bles  Compared,"  these  being  the  Gould  Prize 
Essays,  edited  by  the  very  competent  hand 
of  Prof.  M.  W.  Jacobus  of  the  Hartford  The- 
ological Seminary,  and  published  by  Scribner 
&  Sons. 

On  this  list,  among  English  versions  ante- 
dating the  Authorized  Version,  will  be  found 
Wyclifife's  New  Testament,  dated  1380,  and 
his  Old  Testament,  1382— the  whole  Bible 
1388;  and  to  these  is  added  in  a  footnote  the 
'*  New  Testament  in  Scots,"  being  Purvey's 
Revision  of  Wycliffe.  Wycliffe's  translations, 
being  made  before  the  invention  of  printing, 
were,  of  course,  in  manuscript.  They  never 
were  printed  until  1731,  when  his  New  Testa- 
ment was  published,  and  again  in  1848,  but 
not  until  1850  was  his  whole  Bible  published 
by  the  Rev.  J.  Forshall  and  Sir  F.  Madden. 

The  last  edition  of  Bishop  Westcott's  Re- 
vision of  his  "  General  View  of  the  History 
of  the  English  Bible,"  revised  by  William 
Aldis  Wright,  of  Cambridge  University  (pub- 
lished by  Macmillan  &  Co.),  is  of  the  utmost 
value. 

Those  who  wish  to  pursue  the  subject  more 
widely  would  do  well  to  turn  to  Milman's 
"  Latin  Christianity,"  book  xiii,  chapter  vi, 
for  a  brilliant  description  of  Wycliffe  and  his 
times,  and  also  to  an  illuminating  passage  in 
John  Richard  Green's  "  History  of  the  Eng- 
lish People,"  pages  228-37.  Wycliffe  es- 
caped the  stake,  but  the  indignity  done  his 
remains  half  a  century  later  is  perhaps  more 
widely  known  than  any  other  fact  about  him 
—how  his  remains  were  "ungraved,"  and, 
10 


as  Thomas  Fuller  tells,  '*  they  took  what  was 
left  of  his  bones  and  burned  them  to  ashes 
and  cast  them  into  the  Swift,  a  neighboring 
brook  running  hard  by.  Thus  this  brook  hath 
conveyed  his  ashes  into  Avon,  Avon  into 
Severn,  Severn  into  the  narrow  seas,  they 
into  the  main  ocean.  And  thus  the  ashes  of 
Wycliffe  are  the  emblem  of  his  doctrine, 
which  now  is  dispersed  all  the  world  over." 


11 


William  Tindale  and  his  Trans- 
lation 

i^N  eventful  century  and  a  half  passed 
Jr\^  between  the  death  of  Wycliffe  (1384) 
and  the  next  great  landmark  in  English  Bible 
history,  the  publication  of  William  Tindale' s 
translation.  Mighty  forces  were  astir,  world- 
shaking  events  were  transpiring;  the  Papacy 
was  rent  by  a  schism,  two  rivals,  and  in  one 
case  three,  claiming  the  right  to  Peter's 
throne.  The  Council  of  Constance,  1414-18, 
condemned  John  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague 
to  be  burned  to  death.  The  collapse  of  the 
Eastern  Empire  in  1453  scattered  the  scholars 
of  Greece  through  Europe,  especially  in  Italy. 
These  became  the  pioneers  of  the  New  Learn- 
ing. In  1492  Christopher  Columbus  opened  the 
ocean  gates  into  the  New  World.  Synchro- 
nizing with  these  signs  of  manifest  destiny,  the 
printing  press  was  invented,  and,  according  to 
the  oft-quoted  saying,  Europe  awoke  with  the 
New  Testament  in  her  hand,  for  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Greek  New  Testament  by  the  great 
humanist,  Erasmus,  began  a  new  and  glorious 
chapter  in  the  history  of  western  Christen- 
dom. One  of  the  monks  exclaimed  with  pro- 
phetic foresight,  "We  must  root  out  printing 
or  printing  will  root  us  out."  Kings  and  pre- 
lates and  popes  joined  hands  in  vain  to  shut 
the  light  out  of  England.  The  kingdom  was 
drenched  over  and  again  with  the  blood  of 
martyrs,  martyrs  now  for  the  translation  and 
reading  of  the  Bible,  whose  blessed  memory 
12 


it  should  be  ours  to  revive  for  this  genera- 
tion. The  authors  of  our  English  translation, 
scarcely  less  than  the  authors  of  the  original 
Scriptures,  were  tortured,  not  accepting  de- 
liverance. Their  work  comes  to  lis  attested 
with  the  precious  blood  which  they  shed 
willingly  for  the  truth's  sake. 

Of  no  one  is  this  more  true  than  of  William 
Tindale,  whose  life  story  was  a  tragedy  far 
more  worthy  of  perpetual  remembrance  than 
many  a  famous  recital  which  has  been  em- 
balmed in  our  literature  by  the  masters  of 
poetic  or  dramatic  art. 

The  genius  of  Shakespeare  might  well  have 
seized  on  the  moving  tale  of  this  sixteenth 
century  hero.  Almost  as  little  is  known  of 
the  circumstances  of  his  life  as  of  Shakes- 
peare's, own.  The  approximate  date  of  his 
birth  was  1484  and  his  death  1536,  but  the 
place  of  his  birth  is  uncertain  save  that  it 
was  in  Gloucestershire.  The  first  clear  in- 
dication of  what  he  was  to  be  was  his  uni- 
versity course  at  Oxford,  where  it  is  said 
by  John  Foxe,  in  his  "Book  of  Martyrs," 
that  he  "was  closely  addicted  to  the  study  of 
the  Scriptures."  Thence  he  went  to  Cambridge 
and  afterward  (about  1500)  became  a  tutor  in 
the  family  of  Sir  John  Walsh  of  Little  Sod- 
bury.  Here  his  controversies  began,  one  with 
a  learned  man,  who  said,  "We  were  better 
to  be  without  God's  laws  than  the  Pope's." 
"I  defy  the  Pope  and  all  his  laws,"  Tindale 
replied,  and  added:  "if  God  spare  my  life, 
I  will  cause  a  boy  that  driveth  a  plow  shall 
know  more  of  the  Scriptures  than  thou  dost." 
13 


This  promise  was  abundantly  fulfilled.  He 
wrought  without  ceasing  throughout  his  life 
to  give  England  a  translation  not  like  Wy- 
cliffe's  from  the  Vulgate,  but  from  the  Greek 
and  Hebrew,  and  he  finished  his  work  so  well 
that  to  this  day  when  we  read  King  James 
we  read  largely  William  Tindale. 

At  first  his  hope  was  that  he  might  enter 
the  service  of  Tunstall,  Bishop  of  London; 
but  alas  !  the  Bishop  was  not  after  his  man- 
ner, and  with  cold  courtesy  dismissed  him. 
God,  however,  raised  up  a  friend  for  him  in 
Humphrey  Monmouth,  a  London  alderman, 
who  by  his  befriending  of  Tindale  has  earned 
for  himself  more  of  fame  than  he  has  received. 
He  had  heard  him  preach  and  was  evidently 
drawn  to  him,  and  took  him  to  his  house. 
Afterward  he  was  himself  arrested  and  thrown 
into  the  Tower  for  what  he  had  done,  and  to 
defend  himself  has  given  in  evident  sincerity 
a  touching  picture  of  what  manner  of  man 
Tindale  was:  "Afterward  (when  this  hope 
failed),  he  .  .  .  came  to  me  again,  and 
besought  me  to  help  him ;  and  so  I  took  him 
into  my  house  half  a  year ;  and  there  he  lived 
like  a  good  priest  as  methought.  He  studied 
most  part  of  the  day  and  of  the  night  at  his 
book ;  and  he  would  eat  but  sodden  meat  by 
his  good  will,  nor  drink  but  small  single  beer. 
I  never  saw  him  wear  linen  about  him  in  the 
space  he  was  with  me.  I  did  promise  him 
ten  pounds  sterling  to  pray  for  my  father  and 
mother  their  souls  and  all  Christian  souls." 

He  never  ceased  to  love  England,  but  see- 
ing that  his  life  purpose  could  not  be  accom- 
14 


plished  there,  after  a  year  he  turned  his  back 
on  his  native  land  to  suffer  as  he  says  "  pov- 
erty, exile,  absence  from  friends,  hunger  and 
thirst,  with  very  great  dangers — sharp  and 
hard  fightings."  By  faith  he  foresook  Eng- 
land, not  fearing  the  wrath  of  King  or  Pope — 
desiring  a  better  country,  that  is  an  heavenly. 
And  who  can  measure  the  marvelous  fruit  of 
his  faith? 

It  is  difficult  to  trace  his  course  exactly  dur- 
ing the  next  few  years  on  the  Continent.  He 
was  first  in  Hamburg,  then  probably  in  Witten- 
berg and  with  Martin  Luther — certainly  he 
was  credited  with  this  added  reproach.  Such 
work  as  his  needs  leisure  and  to  be  done  with- 
out distraction.  A  scholar  in  every  fiber  of 
his  mind,  as  his  work  shows  when  judged  by 
the  keenest  modern  criticism,  well  able  to 
reach  a  critical  judgment  on  the  Scripture 
originals  or  the  relative  value  of  the  Vulgate, 
Luther's  version,  and  the  other  accessories  of 
his  toil,  he  might  have  fitly  spent  his  days  in 
the  cloistered  shades  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge. 
But  his  life  was  rather  that  of  a  criminal,  his 
footsteps  dogged  by  Roman  spies,  notably 
one  Cochlaeus,  who  hunted  him  out  at  last 
in  Cologne,  so  that  he  had  to  flee  for  his  life. 
One  reads  the  touching  story  and  thinks  of 
David  pursued  by  Saul — chased  like  a  flea — a 
partridge.  *'  There  is  but  a  step  between  me 
and  death !"  He  was  driven  to  Worms  with  the 
three  thousand  sheets  of  an  octavo  Testament. 
These  had  already  been  printed  in  Cologne. 
In  Worms  he  completed  the  edition  and  added 
to  the  octavo  a  quarto,  and  then  managed  to 
15 


smuggle  them  both  into  England  in  1526,  in 
spite  of  the  vigilant  watch  that  King  Henry 
VIII.  and  the  others  kept  to  prevent  it.  These 
six  thousand  copies  of  the  English  Testament 
revolutionized  England.  They  were  thun- 
dered against  in  sermons ;  it  was  a  criminal 
offense  to  be  found  possessing  one,  much 
less  to  spread  it.  Men  and  women  were 
burned  for  it;  but  the  leaven  was  in  the 
meal  and  it  was  too  late  to  get  it  out.  Sub- 
sequent editions  were  printed  and  the  Bible 
was  finally  completed,  though  probably  not 
all  by  Tindale  himself.  Edition  succeeded 
edition  from  Marburg  and  elsewhere,  and 
though  many  of  these  were  burned,  enough 
were  left  to  serve  the  purpose.  In  1530  the 
Pentateuch  was  issued  in  English,  and  the 
rest  of  the  Old  Testament  later  (made  di- 
rectly from  the  Hebrew).  In  1535  he  was 
betrayed  by  a  false  friend,  cast  into  Vilvorde 
Castle  near  Brussels,  and  there  on  October  6, 
1536,  he  was  strangled  and  his  corpse  burned. 
His  last  words,  a  prayer — "  Lord  open  the 
eyes  of  the  King  of  England,"  brought  a 
speedy  answer.  In  1536  there  were  eight 
editions  of  his  New  Testament  printed  on 
English  soil,  and  nineteen  editions  were  issued 
between  1544  and  1566.  Forty  editions,  it  is 
said,  were  published  in  all,  and  few  copies 
survive.  He  rests  from  his  labors  and  his 
works  do  follow  him. 

Bishop  Westcott,  in  his  history  of  the  Eng- 
lish Bible,  makes  clear  beyond  peradventure 
Tindale 's  extraordinary  qualification  for  his 
task.     He   was  an  independent  and  original 
16 


translator  from  the  original  text,  able  to  use 
with  critical  judgment  the  Latin  Vulgate, 
the  Latin  translations  of  Erasmus,  and  the 
German  of  Luther.  The  Historical  Cata- 
logue of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society 
confirms  this  judgment. 

He  made  two  revisions  of  his  New  Testa- 
ment after  the  first  issue,  all  of  which  show, 
according  to  Bishop  Lightfoot,  his  complete 
independence  and  at  the  same  time  his  skill 
in  using  other  men's  translations  to  the  best 
purpose. 

The  extracts  here  given  will  give  some 
slight  impression  of  what  this  first  master- 
piece of  Bible  translation  in  English  was  like, 
and  how  much  like  it  is  to  our  own  King 
James. 

As  to  this  nothing  more  authoritative  can 
be  quoted  than  this  from  Bishop  Lightfoot : 

**  From  first  to  last  his  style  and  his  inter- 
pretation are  his  own,  and  in  the  originality 
of  Tindale  is  included  in  a  large  measure  the 
originality  of  our  English  Version.  For  not 
only  did  Tindale  contribute  to  it  directly  the 
substantial  basis  of  half  of  the  Old  Testament 
(in  all  probability)  and  of  the  whole  of  the 
New,  but  he  established  a  standard  of  biblical 
translation  which  others  followed.  It  is  even 
of  less  moment  that  by  far  the  greater  part 
of  his  translation  remains  intact  in  our  pres- 
ent Bibles,  than  that  his  spirit  animates  the 
whole.  He  toiled  faithfully  himself,  and 
where  he  failed  he  left  to  those  who  should 
come  after  the  secret  of  success.  The  achieve- 
ment was  not  for  one  but  for  many;  but  he 
17 


Tindale's  New  Testament  (1525): 
Ephesians  ii,  13-22. 

(The  Italics  mark  what  is  preserved  in  the  Authorized  Version.) 

13  But  nowe  in  Christ  lesu ,  ye  whych  a  whyle  agoo 
were  farre  off,  are  made  neye  by  the  bloude  off  Christ. 

14  For  he  is  oure  peace,  whych  hath  made  off  both 
wone  dd  hath  broken  doune  the  wall  i  the  myddes,  that 
was  a  stoppe  bitwene  vs, 

15  and  hath  also  put  awaye  thorowe  his  flesshe,  the 
cause  of  hatred  (thatt  is  to  saye,  the  lawe  of  comaun- 
demente  contayned  in  the  lawe  writte) 

16  for  to  make  of  twayne  wone  newe  ma  in  hym  silfe, 
so  makynge  peace:  and  to  reconcile  bothe  vnto  god  in 
one  body  throwe  his  crosse,  ad  slewe  hattred  therby  : 

17  and  cam  and  preached  peace  to  you  which  were 
a  farre  of,  afid  to  them  that  were  neye. 

18  For  thorowe  hym.  we  bothe  have  an  open  waye  in, 
in  one  sprete  vnto  the  father. 

19  Nowe  t her  fore  ye  are  no  m.oare  strangers  ddforeners: 
but  citesyns  with  the  saynctes,  and  of  the  housholde  of 
god: 

20  and  are  bill  apo  the  foundacion  of  the  apostles  dd 
prophetes,  lesus  Christ  beynge  the  heed  corner  stone, 

21  t  whom,  every  bildynge  coupled  togedder,  groweth 
vnto  a  holy  tepie  in  the  lorde, 

22  i  who  ye  also  are  bill  togedder,  and  made  an  hab- 
it acion  for  god  I  the  sprete. 

—From  Bishop  JVestcotfs  "History  of  the  English  Bib le,'^  page  133. 


fixed  the  type  according  to  which  the  later 
laborers  worked.  His  influence  decided  that 
our  Bible  should  be  popular  and  not  literary, 
speaking  in  a  simple  dialect,  and  that  so  by 
its  simplicity  it  should  be  endowed  with  per- 
manence. He  felt  by  a  happy  instinct  the 
potential  affinity  between  Hebrew  and  Eng- 
lish idioms,  and  enriched  our  language  and 
thought  forever  with  the  characteristics  of  the 
Semitic  mind." 

To  this  may  be  added  Dr.  Eadie's  estimate: 
**  The  translation,  as  a  first  and  individual 
effort,  is  wonderful  in  many  points  of  view. 
Tindale  had  few  appliances  in  the  shape  of 
grammars  and  lexicons ;  but  he  devoted  him- 
self to  his  daily  work  with  singular  earnest- 
ness and  assiduity.  He  often  keeps  the 
proper  translation  of  the  aorist,  where  suc- 
ceeding translators  have  given  it  the  sense  of 
the  perfect.  The  English  is  racy  Saxon,  and 
much  of  it,  sometimes  clause  after  clause, 
with  no  change  save  in  spelling,  is  yet  pre- 
served in  our  common  version.  It  has  a  noble, 
unaffected  simplicity,  and  the  ring  of  genuine 
English  idiom.  It  is  more  definite  and  con- 
cise than  the  current  style  of  his  day,  and 
even  of  his  own  polemical  writings.  He  may 
run  that  reads,  and  he  that  reads  may  un- 
derstand, and  the  typical  *  ploughboy '  may 
gather  the  sense  so  given  in  his  own  tongue. 
The  eulogy  of  Fuller  is  not  overdrawn: 
'  What  he  undertook  was  to  be  admired  as 
glorious;  what  he  performed  to  be  com- 
mended as  profitable;  wherein  he  failed  is 
to  be  excused  as  pardonable,  and  to  be  scored 
19 


on  the  account  rather  of  that  age  than  of  the 
author  himself.' " 

In  addition  to  the  general  treatises  already 
mentioned  in  this  and  in  the  preceding  article, 
readers  will  find  it  profitable  to  look  at  Vol- 
ume ii,  Chapter  vi,  of  Froude's  History  of 
England,  who  characterizes  Tindale  as  "  a  man 
whose  history  is  lost  in  his  work,  and  whose 
epitaph  is  the  Reformation." 


20 


English  Versions  after  Tindale's : 
Coverdale's,  >Iatthew's,  Tav- 
erner's.  The  Great  Bible 

SEVENTY-FIVE  years,  following  the  death 
of  Tindale  in  1536,  were  necessary  to 
ripen  and  bring  to  perfection  the  fruit  of  his 
labors  in  the  Authorized  Version. 

Between  Tindale's  and  King  James  there 
stretches  an  historical  succession  of  eight  Ver- 
sions—Coverdale's  (1535),  Matthew's  (1537), 
Taverner's  (1539),  the  Great  Bible  (1539-40), 
Whittingham's  New  Testament  (1557),  the 
Genevan  Bible  (1560),  the  Bishops'  Bible 
(1568),  Rheims  and  Douay  Version  (1582- 
1609),  then  our  own  (1611),  the  last  link  in 
the  series — the  bright,  consummate  flower  of 
them  all.  There  are  two  groups  of  four 
each.  The  last  chiefly  belongs  under  Queen 
Elizabeth  (1558-1603),  though  Whittingham's 
New  Testament  appeared  in  the  last  year  of 
Queen  Mary.  No  other  new  ones  appeared 
either  under  Edward  VI.  the  Protestant 
(1547-53),  or  under  Mary  the  Catholic 
(1553-58).  The  publication  of  the  Douay 
Old  Testament  was  deferred  until  1609  under 
King  James.  The  present  article  deals  with 
the  four  succeeding  Tindale's  and  during  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII. 

These  were  times  of  travail,  filled  with  a 
dramatic  succession  of  extraordinary  changes 
both  in  Church  and  State.  The  future  of  the 
English  Reformation,  and  with  it  of  vernacu- 
lar Bibles,  often  seemed  precarious  in  the  ex- 
21 


THE   STATUE   OF  TINDALE    ON  THE    THAMES   EM- 
BANKMENT, LONDON 


treme.  The  outline  of  these  events  can  only 
be  hinted  at  here,  but  the  Divine  purpose  in 
the  making  of  the  English  Bible  is  writ  large 
over  them  all. 

The  England  of  Henry  VIII.  was  surely 
not  a  Merrie  England.  The  public  execution- 
er was  always  busy  beheading  or  burning 
the  noblest  and  best  in  the  land.  The  bril- 
liant promise  of  Henry's  early  youth,  who 
came  to  the  throne  at  eighteen,  was  soon 
quenched  in  the  horror  of  his  violent  and 
capricious  tyranny,  and  England  was  drenched 
in  blood  and  tears.  The  very  year  that  Tin- 
dale  was  finally  strangled  at  Vilvorde  Castle, 
near  Brussels,  Anne  Boleyn  was  beheaded  on 
Tower  Hill.  The  scandalous  tale  of  Henry's 
six  wives,  to  whom  he  was  by  turns  a  lover, 
a  divorcer,  and  a  Bluebeard,  reads  like  an 
excerpt  from  Persian  or  Turkish  annals.  He 
had  as  little  compunction  in  turning  the 
edge  of  the  ax  toward  his  most  faithful 
ministers — Wolsey,  notably,  the  '*  King  Cardi- 
nal," as  Shakespeare  calls  him,  who  had 
served  his  King  so  much  better  than  he 
served  his  God,  and  who  only  escaped  the 
block  by  an  opportune  natural  death,  hastened 
no  doubt  by  his  disgrace.  Still  worse  was 
the  judicial  murder  of  the  great  and  virtuous 
Sir  Thomas  More,  whose  gray  hairs  and  long 
service  could  not  save  him. 

Cardinal  Wolsey's  successor  in  office  as 
the  King's  favorite,  Sir  Thomas  Cromwell, 
did  not  *' fling  away  ambition,"  but  held  one 
after  another  the  highest  offices  of  state — 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  Secretary  of 
23 


State,  Great  Chamberlain,  and  especially  Vice- 
gerent in  ecclesiastical  affairs.  J.  R.  Greene 
calls  his  regime  the  English  Terror,  and  reck- 
ons the  first  ten  years  of  his  ascendency  as 
among  the  most  momentous  in  English  his- 
tory. But  he  notes  one  further  fact,  pro- 
foundly significant  of  the  great  change  for 
good  which,  in  spite  of  all  the  evil  of  the 
time,  was  passing  over  England— that  there 
were,  it  is  said,  more  Grammar  Schools 
founded  during  the  latter  years  of  Henry's 
reign  than  in  three  centuries  before.  This 
change  meant  popular  education  and  the  cre- 
ation of  the  intelligent  middle-class,  and  this 
continued  and  increased.  So  likewise  did 
University  reform.  This  was  due  to  the  fact 
no  doubt  that,  with  all  his  faults  and  crimes, 
Henry  loved  learning,  and  was  proud,  with 
good  reason,  that  he  possessed  enough  him- 
self to  dispute  now  with  Luther,  now  with  the 
Pope.  His  Court  was  naturally  dominated 
therefore  by  men  of  the  highest  gifts  and 
graces  like  Sir  Thomas  More  and  Cromwell, 
who  were  alive  to  intellectual  progress.  Then 
Henry's  breach  with  the  Pope — anent  the 
divorce  of  Catharine  of  Aragon — whatever  his 
motive,  inured  to  the  benefit  of  the  Reform- 
ing party,  whose  revolt  from  Rome  had  its 
inevitable  sequence  in  an  English  Bible.  To 
this  grand  finale  kingly  tyranny  and  the  heroic 
patience  of  his  victims  both  converged. 

These  facts  throw  a  flood  of  light  upon  the 
succession  of  Versions  which  we  are  now  con- 
sidering— Coverdale's,  Matthew's, Taverner's, 
and  the  Great  Bible,  all  of  which,  as  will  be 
24 


seen,  appeared  within  four  years  after  the 
death  of  the  proto-martyr  of  Bible  translation. 
The  more  minutely  this  high  literary  suc- 
cession is  scrutinized  the  more  wonderful  ap- 
pears the  transcendent  influence  of  Tindale 
himself.  Never  was  the  power  of  one  man 
to  affect  not  only  his  own  age,  but  ages  to 
come,  more  clearly  manifest.  Our  Bible  is  in 
a  true  sense  a  one-man  version,  but  not  in  any 
bad  sense  ;  for  even  before  Tindale  finished  his 
work.  Miles  Coverdale  had  begun  his,  and  he 
was  to  Tindale  somewhat  as  Barnabas  was  to 
Paul. 

Coverdale  and  his  Version 

Born  about  the  year  1488  in  the  **  North 
Riding"  of  Yorkshire,  Coverdale  was  edu- 
cated at  Cambridge  under  the  Augustinian 
monks  there,  and  admitted  to  priests'  orders 
in  1514.  He  came  early  under  the  influence 
of  the  Reformation,  especially  as  an  inquirer- 
at  certain  religious  meetings  held  near  St. 
John's  College. 

About  1529  he  seems  to  have  gone  to 
the  Continent  to  escape  persecution,  and  it  is 
possible  that  while  there  he  helped  Tindale 
translate  the  Pentateuch.  However  this  may 
be,  he  began  work  as  a  translator  himself 
early  enough  to  publish  his  own  Version  in 
1535 — probably  in  Antwerp.  This  was  the 
first  complete  printed  English  Bible. 

Linked  thus  with  Tindale  from  the  begin- 
ning, the  contrast  between  the  two  men  is 
very  marked,  both  in  their  external  circum- 
stances and  their  inward  characters.  Unlike 
his  predecessor,  Coverdale  enjoyed  the  favor 
25 


of  the  great  and  powerful,  notably  that  of 
Sir  Thomas  Cromwell,  and  as  the  King's 
favorite  his  patronage  made  Coverdale's  task 
far  easier. 

In  1527  he  was  in  intimate  touch  with  the 
two  great  men  of  the  day — Cromwell  and  the 
famous  and  brilliant  Sir  Thomas  More,  and 
it  is  now  thought  that  under  their  patronage  he 
was  then  preparing  to  translate  the  Scriptures. 
About  1534  a  Convocation  under  the  presi- 
dency of  Cromwell  petitioned  the  King  to  de- 
cree a  translation;  so  that  when  his  book  was 
issued,  though  it  was  not  explicitly  under 
royal  authority,  it  was  evidently  with  a  virtual 
consent.  This  was  an  immense  step  in  ad- 
vance and  a  marvelous  answer  to  Tindale's 
dying  prayer.  In  1536  the  Convocation  again 
petitioned,  and  although  nothing  was  done, 
ere  long  what  had  been  forbidden  became  the 
accepted  order  of  the  day. 

Dr.  Eadie  says  of  Coverdale,  ''He  liked  to 
lean  on  someone."  Yet  his  leaning  was  not 
a  burden  but  a  help  to  Tindale,  for  he  was  a 
good  second  where  he  could  not  have  been  an 
adequate  first.  This  appears  very  clearly  in 
his  Version  itself.  Tindale's  is  the  creative 
mind,  virile  and  masculine.  Coverdale  sup- 
plies, if  we  may  say  so,  the  feminine  quality : 
the  one  fortiter  in  re;  the  other  suaviter  in 
modo.  Gentle,  humble,  and  tender  by  nature, 
Coverdale's  style  as  a  translator  reflects  these 
qualities.  The  majesty  of  Tindale  was  ex- 
quisitely supplemented  by  his  delicacy  and 
gentleness.  '*  His  speech  was  always  with 
grace." 

26 


It  seems  clear  now,  though  there  has  been 
some  dispute  as  to  the  fact,  that  Coverdale 
did  not  and  probably  could  not  translate  from 
the  original  languages.  His  own  words  would 
seem  to  settle  the  point.  ''  To  helpe  me 
herein,  I  haue  sondrye  translacions,  not  onely 
in  latyn,  but  also  of  the  '  Douche  '  (German) 
interpreters:  whom  (because  of  theyr  syngu- 
ler  gyftes  &  speciall  diligence  in  the  Bible)  I 
haue  ben  the  more  glad  to  folowe  for  the 
most  parte,  accordynge  as  I  was  requyred. 
Lowly  &  faythfully  haue  I  folowed  myne  in- 
terpreters, &  that  vnder  correcyon." 

The  '*  Douche  "  (German)  to  which  he  re- 
fers, Bishop  Westcott  thinks  beyond  all  doubt 
was  the  Zurich  Bible  so  far  as  the  Old  Testa- 
ment was  concerned,  though  he  made  use 
of  Luther  and  also  of  the  Vulgate.  His  New 
Testament,  according  to  Bishop  Westcott,  has 
for  its  base  Tindale's  first  edition,  but  care- 
fully revised  from  the  second  and  still  more 
by  the  aid  of  the  German  versions.  In  the 
Old  Testament  he  followed  the  German  rather 
than  the  English,  though  with  aid  from  Tin- 
dale  and  with  constant  reference  also  to  the 
Latin  versions.  His  phrasing  **is  nearly  al- 
ways rich  and  melodious  and  his  work  smooth 
rather  than  literal." 

Dr.  Eadie  thus  characterizes  it:  ''Though 
Coverdale's  version  was  only  secondary,  yet 
it  possessed  merits  of  its  own.  The  gen- 
tle flow  of  its  English  is  idiomatic  and 
fresh,  though  many  words  and  phrases  are 
now  antiquated,  and  it  may  still  be  read 
with  pleasure  in  the  Psalms  of  the  English 
27 


Book  of  Common  Prayer,  of  which  it  is  the 
basis."  .  .  .  •*  No  little  of  that  inde- 
finable quality  that  gives  popular  charm  to 
our  English  Bible,  and  has  endeared  it  to 
so  many  generations,  is  owing  to  Coverdale. 
The  semitones  in  the  music  of  the  style  are 
his  gift.  Tindale  gave  us  the  first  great 
outline  distinctly  and  wonderfully  etched,  but 
Coverdale  added  those  minuter  touches  which 
soften  and  harmonize  it.  The  characteristic 
features  are  Tindale 's  in  all  their  boldness  of 
form  and  expression ;  the  more  delicate  lines 
and  shadings  are  the  contribution  of  his  suc- 
cessor, both  in  his  own  vei-sion  and  in  the 
Great  Bible,  revised  and  edited  by  him." 

Matthew's  Bible 

Next  came  Matthew's  Bible,  as  it  must  be 
called,  though  it  is  generally  believed  that  in 
some  strange  way  John  Rogers,  also  at  first  a 
priest  of  the  Roman  Church,  preferred  to  use 
this  pseudonym.  His  Bible  was  simply  a  re- 
production for  the  most  part  of  Tindale  and 
Coverdale  combined,  the  masculine  and  the 
feminine  thus  happily  blended— Tindale  still 
remaining  Tindale  in  substance,  but  brought 
into  a  little  closer  relationship  with  Coverdale 
under  the  hand  of  Rogers.  The  Pentateuch 
and  the  New  Testament  are  Tindale  with  very 
slight  change.  The  Old  Testament  from  Ezra 
to  Malachi  are  Coverdale.  The  remaining 
books  of  the  Old  Testament,  Joshua  to  Sec- 
ond Chronicles,  are  a  new  translation.  John 
Foxe,  in  his  ''Acts  and  Monuments,"  says: 
**  In  the  translation  of  this  Bible  the  greatest 
28 


doer  was  indeed  William  Tindale,  who  with 
the  help  of  Miles  Coverdale  had  translated  all 
the  books  thereof  except  only  the  Apocrypha 
and  certain  notes  in  the  margin  which  were 
added  after.  But  because  the  said  William 
Tindale  in  the  meantime  was  apprehended 
before  this  Bible  was  fully  perfected,  it  was 


,k>.liLi.,l„.    ULVNVL  .  .,.-,L.l     \N  HENRY  Vin. 

THE  BAPTISM  OF  PRINCESS  (AFTERWARD  QUEEN)  ELIZABETH 
(From  an  old  volume  ot  Shakespeare's  Henry  VUL) 

thought  good  ...  to  father  it  by  a  strange 
name  of  Thomas  Matthewe  ;  John  Rogers  at 
the  same  time  being  corrector  to  the  print, 
who  had  then  translated  the  residue  of  the 
Apocrypha  and  added  also  certain  notes  there- 
29 


to  in  the  margin,  and  therefore  came  it  to  be 
called  'Thomas  Matthewe's  Bible.'"  Bishop 
Westcott  quotes  this  passage  not  to  indorse 
its  minutiae,  but  to  indicate  how  the  labors  of 
these  three  men  were  interlaced.  It  was  a 
weaving  process,  or  rather  the  twisting  of  the 
strands  of  a  cord,  at  first  loosely  and  then  a 
little  more  closely,  until  the  finished  product 
is  reached. 

Matthew's,  or  Rogers'  Bible  appeared  in 
1537,  dedicated  to  King  Henry  VIII.  Thus 
slowly  the  providence  of  God  was  shaping 
events  toward  the  enthronement  of  His  Word 
in  public  honor.  "  For  vnto  whom,"  Matthew 
asks,  "  or  in  to  whose  proteccyon  shulde  the 
defence  of  soche  a  worck  be  soner  comytted 
(wherein  are  contayned  the  infallyble  prom- 
eses  of  mercy  .  .  .  wyth  the  whole  summe 
of  Christy anitye)  then  vnto  his-  Maiestye, 
which  not  onely  by  name  and  tytle,  but  most 
euydently  and  openly,  most  Christenly  and 
wyth  most  Godly  pollicye  doth  profess  the 
defence  thereof."  Rogers  won  the  martyr's 
crown,  being  burned  at  Smithfield  in  1555. 
Without  formal  ecclesiastical  action  the  book 
had  now  won  its  place  among  the  English  peo- 
ple. Henceforth  Matthew's  Bible,  the  happy 
marrying  of  Tindale  and  Coverdale,  furnished 
the  grand  basis  for  the  later  revisions  which 
were  to  bring  to  perfection  the  great  classic 
translation  of  1611. 

Taverner's  Version 

In  1539  another  Version  appeared,  made  by 
Richard   Taverner.     It  has    this  distinction, 
30 


that  it  was  the  work  of  a  layman — a  learned 
layman,  who  6ad  studied  law  and  through 
the  influence  of  Cromwell  in  1534  obtained 
an  official  position  in  the  service  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. 

He  was  licensed  to  preach  as  a  layman  by 
Edward  VI.,  but  before  that  issued  his  Bible 
under  the  patronage  of  Cromwell,  dedicated  to 
the  King.  Like  the  others  it  is  based  on  Tin- 
dale,  whose  work,  however,  he  handles  with 
distinction,  originality,  and  vigor.  Its  merits 
as  a  version,  however,  did  not  procure  for  it 
the  influence  which  might  have  been  expected, 
as,  according  to  Bishop  Westcott,  it  exercised 
no  influence  whatever  on  later  revisions.  This 
may  have  been  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  is- 
sued too  near  in  time  to  the  next  version. 

The  Great  Bible 

This  version,  "  The  Great  Bible,"  came  the 
same  year  ( 1539) ,  so  called  from  its  size,  15  x  9. 
inches,  which  gave  it  its  distinction,  in  which 
Cranmer,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  Tun- 
stall,  Bishop  of  London  (the  same  'My  Lord 
of  London'  who  had  hounded  Tindale  to 
his  death) — joined  hands  with  Cromwell  and 
Heath,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  afterward  Arch- 
bishop of  York,  to  aid  Coverdale  in  carry- 
ing forward  the  great  undertaking.  The 
Great  Bible  is  chiefly  a  revision  of  Matthew's 
made  by  Coverdale ;  not  a  mere  superficial 
revision,  but  that  of  a  competent  editor. 
Coverdale  was  prepared  by  his  own  prior 
labors  for  what  he  now  undertook  and  carried 
forward  to  successful  conclusion,  and  the 
31 


result  of  his  labors  appears  in  successive 
editions  of  the  Great  Bible  which  are  con- 
nected with  the  names  of  his  colleagues, 
Cromwell  in  1539  and  Cranmer  in  1540.  Its 
title-page  has  a  picture  of  Henry  VIII.  giv- 
ing the  Bible  to  Cromwell  and  Cranmer, 
who  in  turn  give  it  to  the  clergy  and  laity 
surrounding  them. 

The  publication  of  The  Great  Bible  was  ac- 
companied with  an  injunction  that  it  should 
be  placed  in  the  Parish  churches,  and  six 
Bibles  were  set  up  in  convenient  places  in  St. 
Paul's  Church.  The  King  issued  a  proclama- 
tion in  May,  1540,  to  accompany  its  reading. 
A  public  document  justifying  these  measures 
declares,  **  Englishmen  have  now  in  hand  in 
every  church  and  place,  almost  every  man, 
the  Holy  Bible  and  New  Testament  in  their 
mother  tongue." 

So,  then,  within  three  short  years  after  Tin- 
dale's  death  the  leaders  of  Church  and  State 
were  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the  great 
path-breaker. 


32 


Elizabethan  Versions :— The  Ge- 
nevan,—The  Bistiops% — The 
Douay 

THE  Great  Bible,  so  called  merely  from 
its  folio  size,  was  succeededby  a  greater, 
not  in  size,  for  it  was  a  quarto,  but  greater  in 
its  accuracy  and  felicity  as  a  translation.  The 
Genevan  Version  wasbasedonthe  Great  Bible, 
but  added  to  it  a  scholarly  fidelity,  coupled 
with  a  happy  grace  and  vigor  of  idiomatic 
English,  which  made  it  for  many  years  the 
Bible  of  the  English  people.  The  circum- 
stances which  led  to  this  result  are  part  of  the 
strange,  eventful  history  of  that  time  of  stress 
and  storm.  To  state  even  in  outline  the  his- 
torical causes  that  lie  behind  the  Genevan  Ver- 
sion would  be  to  picture  the  civil  and  religious 
convulsions  which  shook  not  only  England 
but  Continental  Europe.  As  in  the  apocalyptic 
picture,  there  were  **  voices,  thunders  and  light- 
nings, and  there  was  a  great  earthquake." 

The  Genevan  Version  was  made  by  English 
exiles,  companions  in  tribulation  for  the  Word 
of  God  and  for  the  testimony  of  Jesus  Christ. 
It  might  be  said  after  the  manner  of  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  that,  because  of  great  perse- 
cution against  the  church,  they  were  scattered 
abroad  and  went  everywhere  preaching  the 
Word — and  translating  it. 

The  name  **  Genevan"  is  profoundly  signifi- 
cant. The  school  of  John  Calvin  was  a  natural 
focus  for  the  learning  of  the  day.  Thither  the 
victims  of  religious  persecution  in  England  fled 
33 


for  refuge.  Henry  VIII.,  though  a  friend  of 
learning  and  by  no  means  a  foe  of  moderate 
reform  in'religious  life,  was  at  best  a  fickle  and 


JOHN    CALVIN 


treacherous    friend.     The   close  of  his  reign 

was  marked  by  what  is  known  as  the  Catholic 

34 


reaction.  Although  the  Great  Bible  had  ap- 
peared with  a  picture  of  him  and  his  Prime 
Minister,  during  his  later  years  severe  restric- 
tions were  placed  upon  the  use  of  this  or  of 
any  vernacular  Bible. 

In  1543  Parliament  forbade  all  translations 
bearing  the  name  of  Tindale  and  forbade,  fur- 
ther, women  (except  women  of  rank), artificers, 
apprentices,  journeymen,  servants,  farmers, 
and  laborers  to  read,  to  themselves  or  others, 
publicly  or  privately,  any  part  of  the  Bible 
under  pain  of  imprisonment.  It  was  not  until 
Edward  VI.,  Henry's  son  by  Jane  Seymour, 
ascended  the  throne  that  the  Word  in  its  new 
English  dress  had  full  course  and  was  glorified. 

The  story  has  often  been  told  of  how  at 
King  Edward's  coronation  three  swords  were 
brought  to  him  as  signs  of  the  triple  kingdom. 
He  asked  for  a  Bible  to  be  brought,  saying 
that  this  was  the  sword  of  the  spirit.  Thirty.- 
five  editions  of  the  New  Testament  and  thir- 
teen of  the  Bible  were  published  during  his 
reign.  The  beneficed  clergy  were  commanded 
to  provide  large  copies  for  public  use.  The 
people  could  read,  with  none  to  molest  or 
make  them  afraid.  It  seemed  as  though  the 
Book  had  come  to  its  own. 

Under  these  auspicious  circumstances  Bible 
translation  might  naturally  have  gone  forward, 
but  this  was  not  to  be  during  Edward's  brief 
reign.  It  was  not  to  Protestant  Edward,  but 
to  Catholic  Mary,  who  succeededhim — *  'Bloody 
Mary  "—  that  we  are  indebted  for  the  Genevan 
Version.  Her  fierce  wrath  drove  the  choicest 
spirits  in  England  to  the  Continent,  where 
35 


some  of  them  found  their  way  to  that  select 
company  of  Christian  scholars  who  gathered 
at  Geneva.  As  soon  as  Mary  came  to  the 
throne  eight  hundred  persons  crossed  the 
channel,  including  five  bishops,  fifty  eminent 
divines,  besides  titled  ladies,  among  them  the 
Queen's  own  cousin.  They  were  found  in 
many  cities,  chiefly  perhaps  in  Frankfort. 
Here  there  arose  a  division  of  judgment  among 
themselves  which  led  to  the  secession  of  a  cer- 
tain party,  especially  of  the  scholarly  sort,  to 
Geneva.  From  these  came  the  Genevan  Ver- 
sion. Among  the  names  mentioned  in  con- 
nection with  it  are  John  Bodley  (father  of  the 
founder  of  the  Bodleian  Library),  Myles 
Coverdale,  Thomas  Cole,  Anthony  Gilby, 
Thomas  Sampson,  John  Knox,  and  last  but 
not  least,  William  Whittingham.  Whitting- 
ham  was  married  to  the  sister  of  John  Calvin 
(or  of  Idelette  DeBeurre,  Calvin's  wife— it  is 
not  quite  clear  which),  and  was  himself  an 
Oxonian  of  scholarly  accomplishments  who 
had  spent  many  years  in  foreign  travel. 

Under  Calvin's  mighty  shadow,  if  not  by 
his  suggestion — who  can  say  ? — he  issued  his 
own  translation  of  the  New  Testament.  This 
was  a  forerunner  of  the  Genevan  Version  it- 
self, and  is  often,  though  incorrectly,  identified 
with  the  Genevan  New  Testament.  First, 
however,  came  the  independent  translation 
made  by  Whittingham,  but  accompanied  with 
a  stirring  introduction  by  Calvin  himself. 
While,  then,  Mary  was  desolating  England, 
sending  three  hundred  persons  to  the  stake  in 
three  years,  among  them  three  bishops,  and 
36 


Cranmer,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  himself, 
this  little  group  of  scholar-saints  quietly  pre- 
pared the  next  stage  in  the  history  of  the 
English  Bible. 

Calvin  himself,  of  course,  could  not  con- 
tribute anything  directly  to  the  English  Ver- 
sion. He  was,  however,  deeply  interested  in 
Bible  translation,  and  was  indeed  himself  en- 
gaged at  that  very  time  in  perfecting  the 
French  version  of  Olivetan.  He  revised  it 
three  times— in  1545,  1551,  and  1558.  Whit- 
tingham's  New  Testament  appeared  in  1557, 
just  before  the  close  of  Mary's  reign  in  Eng- 
land, so  that  we  may  without  much  exercise 
of  the  historical  imagination  see  these  two 
men,  so  closely  linked,  laboring  together,  the 
one  on  the  French  and  the  other  on  the  English 
New  Testament.  Calvin's  revisions  were  scaf- 
folding to  the  final  form  of  the  French  version, 
which  was  issued  in  1588  by  a  company  of 
French  Protestants.  Though  Calvin  was  deal- 
ing with  another  tongue,  it  could  not  fail  that 
Whittingham  and  his  confreres  should  catch 
somewhat  of  his  spirit.  The  quickening  touch 
of  so  penetrating  a  genius  as  his  musthave  been 
keenly  felt  in  all  the  intellectual  and  spiritual 
life  of  that  high  company,  of  which  he  was 
the  most  distinguished  ornament  and  the  most 
influential  member. 

The  Genevan  Version  was  based  in  the  Old 
Testament  on  the  Great  Bible,  to  the  text  of 
which  it  made  considerable  correction  (so 
Bishop  Westcott  says),  but  not  so  much  in  its 
translation.  In  the  New  Testament  it  be- 
trays the  powerful  hand  of  Calvin's  associ- 
37 


ate,  Theodore  de  Beza,  through  his  Latin 
translation. 

The  Genevan  was  the  first  English  Bible 
printed  in  Roman  type,  instead  of  the  usual 
black  letter;  the  first  also  to  break  up  the 
solid  paragraphs  into  verses  like  our  own ;  the 
first  to  use  italics  to  indicate  the  word  supplied 
by  the  translators.  It  was  the  first  version 
issued  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  was 
dedicated  to  her  in  simple  language,  free  from 
unworthy  adulation,  coming  out  in  1560  soon 
after  her  coronation.  It  had  marginal  notes, 
a  running  commentary  on  the  text  (Calvin- 
istic  in  tone),  and  was  adapted  to  the  needs 
of  the  common  people,  who  heard  it  gladly 
and  cherished  it  with  devout  tenderness  in 
life  and  in  death.  It  was  above  all  others  the 
people's  book — the  household  Bible — not  only 
in  England  but  in  Scotland,  where  it  soon 
came  into  general  use.  John  Knox  took  it  in 
place  of  Tindale's  version,  which  he  used  up  to 
the  time  of  its  appearance,  and  carried  it,  so 
Dr.  Eadie  relates,  to  the  First  General  As- 
sembly of  the  Presbyterian  Kirk  in  Edinburgh. 

The  influence  of  the  English  Bible  upon 
English  literature  cannot  here  be  discussed, 
but  it  is  of  special  interest  to  note  that 
the  creative  genius  of  William  Shakespeare 
found  in  the  Genevan  Version  no  little  of  the 
most  fine  gold  which  furnished  him  with  a  fit 
medium  of  expression.  This  has  been  shown 
in  more  than  one  recent  treatise — perhaps  as 
well  or  better  than  any  other,  by  Dr.  Thomas 
Carter  in  his  "  Shakespeare  and  Holy  Scrip- 
tures." In  this  he  argues  with  elaborate  care 
38 


and  seemingly  beyond  refutation  that  Shakes- 
peare's Bible  was  the  Genevan  Version. 

Shakespeare's  literary  career  was  finished 
practically  before  the  publication  of  King 
James.  Dr.  Carter  goes  through  all  the 
plays,  showing  the  marvelous  interweaving 
of  Biblical  phraseology  in  the  very  fiber  of 
his  style.  It  is  not  so  much  direct  quotation 
as  continual  adaptation  of  Scripture  phrase 
to  his  thought  that  betrays  so  unmistakably 
his  minute  familiarity  with  the  text  of  the 
version.  His  use  of  it  is  not  always  reverent. 
He  used  Scripture  "to  dignify  the  thought 
of  a  king,  to  point  the  jest  of  a  wit,  or  to 
brighten  the  dullness  of  a  clown." 

It  is  a  striking  coincidence  surely  that  the 
school  of  Calvin  and  his  "most  potent  grave 
and  reverend  Seignors"  in  Geneva  should 
have  thus  potently  touched  to  so  fine  issues 
the  sublime  genius  of  the  myriad-minded 
master  cf  the  human  heart. 

A  recent  book  by  Mr.  Sidney  Lee  on  "The 
French  Renaissance  in  England,"  calls  atten- 
tion to  French  influence  in  Elizabethan  liter- 
ature. This,  the  writer  thinks,  is  much  greater 
than  has  been  ordinarily  supposed.  The  early 
•translators  of  the  English  Bible,  according  to 
Mr.  Lee,  owe  to  contemporary  French  efforts 
of  the  same  kind  an  appreciable  stimulus. 
He  also  dwells  upon  the  influence  of  Cal- 
vin's style  on  the  English  prose  writers.  This 
accords  in  general  with  the  view  here  sug- 
gested. 

Dr.  Matthew  B.  Riddle,  one  of  the  Ameri- 
can company  of  New  Testament  Revisers, 
39 


calls  attention  to  a  curious  illustration  of  the 
vitality  of  the  Genevan  Version  and  its  hold 
on  English-speaking  Christians,  that  at  the 
Westminster  Assembly,  more  than  thirty  years 
after  the  publication  of  the  Authorized  Ver- 
sion, the  Genevan  Version  was  still  preferred 
by  many  members,  and  several  places  in  the 
Westminster  Confession  of  Faith  framed  by 
that  body  indicate  its  influence.  He  adds  that 
the  Bishops'  Bible  was  used  in  the  pulpit  of 
the  First  Church  of  Hartford,  Conn.,  forty 
years  after  1611. 

The  Bishops*  Bible 

This  brings  us  to  the  Bishops'  Bible,  the 
chief  distinction  of  which  was  that  it  has  made 
the  formally  adopted  basis  for  the  King  James 
Version.  But  for  this  it  cannot  be  said  to 
deserve  to  rank  with  its  predecessors,  and 
especially  with  the  Genevan,  which  it  was 
probably  intended  in  some  measure  to  sup- 
plant, but  which  it  singularly  failed  to  equal 
in  power.  It  was  sometimes  called  Parker's 
Bible,  since  Matthew  Parker,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  was  its  originator  and  promoter. 

Strype,  the  historian  of  this  phase  of  the 
subject,  describes  the  method  by  which  it  was* 
done  : 

The  archbishop  took  upon  him  the  labour 
to  contrive  and  set  the  whole  work  a  going 
in  a  proper  method,  by  sorting  out  the  whole 
Bible  into  parcels  .  .  .  ,  and  distributing 
those  parcels  to  able  bishops  and  other  learned 
men,  to  peruse  and  collate  each  the  book  or 
books  allotted  them:  sending  withal  his  in- 
40 


structions  for  the  method  they  should  observe; 
and  they  to  add  some  short  marginal  notes 
for  the  illustration  or  correction  of  the  text. 
And  all   these  portions   of   the   Bible  being 


L' 

:^  v:;w^,-^te^!^i'® 

ii 

1 

1 

s 

THE   EARL   OF   LEICESTER 

(Illustration  in  the  Bishops'  Bible,  1568) 


finished  and  sent  back  to  the  archbishop,  he 

was  to  add  the  last  hand  to  them  and  so  to 

41 


take  care  for  printing  and  publishing  the 
whole." 

It  was  the  aim  of  the  bishops  to  produce  a 
popular  rather  than  a  literary  version.  Like 
so  many  other  attempts  of  revision,  it  proved 
in  the  end  less  conservative  than  at  the  begin- 
ning. Bishop  Westcott  thinks  the  work  as  a 
whole  extremely  unequal.  The  bishops  knew 
more  Greek  than  they  did  Hebrew.  The  his- 
torical books  of  the  Old  Testament  follow 
the  Great  Bible  very  closely,  the  others  less 
closely.  The  Genevan  Version  had  its  influ- 
ence 'throughout,  and  many  of  the  changes 
made  in  the  Bishops'  are  due  to  it.  The  first 
edition  appearing  in  1568,  was  followed  by 
another  revised  edition  in  1572.  Many  phrases 
and  happy  turns  of  expression  can  be  cited  for 
which  we  are  indebted  to  the  Bishops'  Bible : 
"Joint  heirs  with  Christ;"  "the  glory  of  his 
inheritance;"  love  "worketh  no  ill  to  his 
neighbour,"  and  other  like  expressions. 

The  Bishops',  like  the  Genevan  Version, 
contains  explanatory  notes  which  are  shorter 
and  deal  with  the  interpretation  in  the  stricter 
sense  of  the  word.  One  of  them  may  be 
quoted  as  of  curious  interest  to  American 
readers  in  Psalm  45,  9,  on  "  the  gold  of 
Ophir":  "Ophir  is  thought  to  be  the  Ilande 
in  the  West  coast  of  late  found  by  Chris- 
topher Columbo:  fro  whence  at  this  day  is 
brought  most  fine  golde." 

The  Rheims,  or  Douay,  Version 

A  rival  translation   produced   by   scholars 
bitterly  antagonistic  to  those  who  had  thus 
42 


far  toiled  at  the  English  Version,  was  not 
without  its  value  to  them.  The  point  of  view 
of  the  makers  of  the  Rheims,  or  Douay,  Ver- 
sion was  so  diverse  from  the  Genevan  or  the 
Bishops'  Bible  that  their  results  make  a  use- 
ful foil  and  occasionally  a  wholesome  correc- 
tive to  both,  and  to  the  King  James  as  well. 

The  men  of  Douay  were  genuine  scholars, 
and  though  bent  on  supplanting  the  Tindale 
tradition,  in  spite  of  themselves  the  Rheimists 
profited  by  the  labors  of  those  whom  they 
sought  to  undo. 

William  Allen,  Principal  of  St.  Mary's  Hall, 
Oxford,  initiated  the  new  translation.  Under 
his  inspiration  a  college  was  founded  at  first 
in  Douay  in  1568  (the  year  the  Bishops'  Bible 
appeared)  for  the  education  of  young  English- 
men in  the  Roman  Catholic  manner,  and  the 
training  of  priests  intended  to  reconvert 
England  to  the  Papacy.  The  college  was 
moved  to  Rheims  ten  years  later  and  then 
back  again  to  Douay.  Allen,  who  was  after- 
ward made  Cardinal  by  Pope  Sixtus  V.,  at 
the  request  of  Philip  II.  of  Spain,  was  its 
president,  and  it  is  interesting  to  read  that 
in  this  Roman  Catholic  institution  the  Bible 
was  carefully  taught  every  day.  Thus  Protes- 
tantism was  already  modifying  Roman  usage. 

Gregory  Martin,  *'  graduate  and  Licentiate 
in  Theology  "  (so  the  official  records  of  Douay 
read)  a  brilliant  linguist,  began  the  transla- 
tion in  October,  1578,  ten  years  after  the 
Bishops'  Bible  appeared,  and  did  the  most  of 
the  work.  Associated  with  him  were  Cardi- 
nal Allen,  Richard  Bristow,  Thomas  Worth- 
43 


ington,  and  William  Reynolds,  all  men  of 
learning,  but  he  bore  the  brunt  of  it.  They 
adopted  a  false  principle  of  translation  in  tak- 
ing the  Latin  Vulgate,  rather  than  the  Greek 


CARDINAL   WILLIAM   ALLEN 


or  Hebrew  originals,  as  their  basis,  and  ad- 
hered with   courageous   consistency   to   this 
principle  even  when  their  scholarly  instincts 
44 


must  have  revolted  from  the  manifest  inaccu- 
racies of  the  Vulgate.  As  a  result  all  the 
errors  of  the  Vulgate  were  transferred  to 
their  English  version,  so  far  as  they  can  be 
transferred  in  a  Latinized  English  style,  which 
is  at  times  hardly  English  at  all  and  scarcely 
intelligible.  "  Loaves  of  proposition,"  a  * 'cur- 
dled mountain,"  "cherogrillus,"  '*ophioma- 
chus,"  "sciniph,"  "charadrion,"  for  instance, 
are  sufficient  to  indicate  to  what  un-English 
absurdities  these  scholarly  translators  were 
driven  by  their  theory. 

The  value  of  the  Douay  thus  consists  not 
in  its  unnatural  and  un-English  style,  and  cer- 
tainly not  in  the  anti-Protestant  notes  accom- 
panying it,  but  mainly  in  its  vocabulary,  which 
has  forced  as  it  were  into  the  language  many 
Latin  words  serviceable  for  the  expression  of 
scriptural  ideas.  Many  of  these  usages  the 
King  James  revisers  subsequently  adopted. 

The  Douay  New  Testament  appeared  in 
1582  and  the  Old  Testament  in  1609-10,  just 
before  the  King  James  appeared. 

Two  notable  articles  on  the  Douay  Version 
are  to  be  found  in  the  Roman  Catholic  En- 
cyclopedia from  the  pen  of  Monsignor  Ward, 
President  of  St.  Edmond's  College,  England. 
This  learned  writer  points  out  that  the  Bibles 
popularly  styled  "Douay"  now  "are  most 
improperly  so  called,"  being  founded  on  the 
revisions  of  Bishop  Challoner  in  1749-52. 
The  changes  which  he  introduced  according  to 
Cardinal  Newman,  it  is  further  said,  "almost 
amounted  to  a  new  translation,"  and  with 
this  judgment  Cardinal  Wiseman  concurs. 
45 


"Scarcely  any  verse  remains  as  it  was  origi- 
nally published."  In  nearly  every  case,  Mon- 
signor  Ward  adds,  "these  changes  took  the 
form  of  approximating  to  the  Authorized  Ver- 
sion." To  this  may  be  added  Monsignor 
Ward's  further  admission  in  the  article  on 
Gregory  Martin,  that  the  Douay  "is  full  of 
Latinisms,  so  it  has  little  of  the  rhythmic 
harmony  of  the  Anglican  Authorized  Version, 
which  has  become  part  of  the  literature  of  the 
nation,"  but  in  accuracy  and  scholarship  he 
thinks  it  "  superior  to  any  of  the  English  ver- 
sions which  had  preceded  it,  and  it  is  under- 
stood to  have  great  influence  on  the  translators 
of  the  King  James  Version."  So  it  appears 
that  these  two  companies  of  translators,  work- 
ing from  such  widely  different  standpoints,  in 
the  end  proved  each  to  be  useful  in  varying 
degrees  to  the  other. 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  first  by  Wycliffe, 
then  by  Tindale,  in  the  stormy  days  of  Henry 
VIII.  and  on  through  "the  spacious  times  of 
Great  Elizabeth" — the  golden  age  of  English 
letters — then  finally  under  King  James,  the 
English  Bible  came  to  its  throne  of  power. 


46 


Archbishop  Cranmer  to  Sir  Thomas 
Croni>vell,  Concerning  Matthew's 
(Rogers')  Bible,  1537 


'My  especial  good  lord  .  .  .  ,  these 
'shall  be  to  signify  unto  the  same,  that  you 
'  shall  receive  by  the  bringer  thereof  a  bible 
'in  English,  both  of  a  new  translation  and  of 
*a  new  print,  dedicated  unto  the  king's  maj- 
'esty,  as  farther  appeareth  by  a  pistle  unto 
'his  grace  in  the  beginning  of  the  book, 
'which  in  mine  opinion  is  very  well  done, 
'and  therefore  I  pray  your  lordship  to  read 
'the  same.     .     .     . 

*  And  forasmuch  as  the  book  is  dedicated 
'unto  the  king's  grace,  and  also  great  pains 
'  and  labour  taken  in  setting  forth  of  the  same ; 
'I  pray  you,  my  lord,  that  you  will  exhibit 
'the  book  unto  the  king's  highness,  and  to 
'obtain  of  his  grace,  if  you  can,  a  license  that 
'  the  same  may  be  sold  and  read  of  every  per- 
'son,  without  danger  of  any  act,  proclamation, 
'or  ordinance,  heretofore  granted  to  the  con- 
*  trary,  until  such  time  as  we  the  bishops  shall 
'  set  forth  a  better  translation,  which  I  think  will 
'not  be  till  a  day  after  doomsday.     .     .     .' 


The  Dedication  of  the  Genevan  Ver- 
sion to  Queen  Elizabeth  (1560) 


'The  eyes  of  all  that  feare  God  in  all  places 
beholde  your  countreyes  as  an  example  to  all 
that  beleue,  and  the  prayers  of  all  the  godly 
at  all  tymes  are  directed  to  God  for  the  pres- 
eruatio  of  your  maiestie.  For  considering 
Gods  wonderful  mercies  toward  you  at  all 
seasons,  who  hath  pulled  you  out  of  the 
mouthe  of  the  lyons,  and  how  that  from 
your  youth  you  haue  bene  broght  vp  in  the 
holy  Scriptures,  the  hope  of  all  men  is  so 
increased,  that  thei  ca  not  but  looke  that  God 
shulde  bring  to  passe  some  woderful  worke 
by  your  grace  to  the  vniversal  comfort  of  his 
Churche.  Therefore  euen  aboue  stregth  you 
must  shewe  your  selfe  strong  and  bolde  in 
Gods  matters.  .  .  This  Lord  of  lordes  & 
King  of  kings  who  hath  euer  defended  his, 
strengthe,  cofort  and  preserue  your  maiestie, 
that  you  may  be  able  to  builde  vp  the  mines 
of  Gods  house  to  his  glorie,  the  discharge  of 
your  conscience,  and  to  the  comfort  of  all 
them  that  loue  the  comming  of  Christ  lesus 
our  Lord.' 


Chronology  of  the  English 
Printed  Bible 

John  Wycliffe's  translation, circulated 
in  manuscript  only,  about  1360  to 
1384. 

William  Tindale's  New  Testament, 
1525. 

William  Tindale's  Pentateuch,  1530. 

Miles  Coverdale's  Bible,  1535. 

Matthew's  (John Rogers)  Bible,  1537. 

The  Great  Bible,  1539. 

Taverner's  Bible,  1539. 

Whittingham's  New  Testament,  1557. 

The  Genevan  Bible,  1560. 

The  Bishops'  Bible,  1568. 

The  Rheims,  or  Douay,  New  Testa- 
ment, 1582;  the  Old  Testament, 
1609-10. 

Authorized  Version  (King  James), 
1611. 

The  Revised  Version  of  the  New 
Testament,  1881;  complete  Bible, 
1885. 

American  Standard  Revised  Version, 
1901. 


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English  versions  prior  to  King  James 

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